Category Archives: Writing

Creativity, Writing

Back to Creative Writing School with Bridget Whelan: Time Traveling with a Pen

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Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Bridget Whelan/@agoodconfession

In the broad daylight of our habitual memory the images of the past turn gradually pale and fade out of sight, nothing remains of them, we shall never recapture it. Or rather we should never recapture it had not a few words been carefully locked away in oblivion, just as an author deposits in the National Library a copy of a book which might otherwise become unobtainable. ~ Marcel Proust French writer 1871-1922

 

It is my pleasure introduce you to UK Author and Creativity Coach Bridget Whelan whose eBook, Back to Creative Writing School just came out on Amazon and Amazon UK. My book reviews can be found on Amazon and GoodReads.

Bridget is going to take us all back to creativity writing school in this post,“Time Traveling with a Pen.”

 

Welcome, Bridget!

 

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Bridget Whelan, Author and Creativity Coach

 

 Time Traveling with a Pen

The American philosopher Suzanne Langer argued that memory shouldn’t be thought of as a noun – a storehouse or recording machine – but as a verb, an activity. Revisiting our younger self and the world we once inhabited is not easy, but there are ways of unlocking the words that can trigger the past and bring it back, vivid, detailed and authentic.

Sometimes a chance encounter will do it. A scent carried on a breeze can transport us to a specific afternoon in childhood or an overheard conversation can spark a flashback to an acne-dominated adolescence. But as a writer, you can’t trust to luck.

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Photo Credit: “Lava Girl”  Flickr Creative Commons 

 

I’m convinced that one of the best ways to stir your memory, snap it awake and fire it up, is with a pen in your hand. The very act of writing can produce where-did-that-come-from? moments that will help you add substance and detail to the faded pictures of the past that you carry around in your head.

The right exercise can let you travel back in time.

Try this one. The aim is to compile a set of notes that no one else is ever going to see. There’s a great freedom in deciding that before you start. You don’t have to worry about spelling or grammar, if a phrase is a bit of a cliché or if someone else would be upset by what you’re writing. You are just gathering the raw material. Later you will refine and reflect on it, but for now it’s notes that are for your eyes only.

Decide on a period in your life that you are interested in writing about. If you’re not sure, I suggest sometime between the ages of 6 and 16. Don’t generalize: pin down a specific year.

Choose five words to describe yourself at that age.

10 words to describe your family at that time.

What was your favourite thing to eat at this time in your life? Who made it/sold it? How often did you eat it?

 

Write a sentence to describe the house or apartment you were living in.

Write a paragraph describing the kitchen. Think about the floors and walls, the colour of the cabinets, the view from the window, the background noises and the radio playing. Think about the table and where you once sat.

Write down five smells you associate with the kitchen: remember we often do more than cook and eat there. It can be the powerhouse of the home – where clothes were laundered, shoes shined, games played, friends gathered and work completed

Right, note-taking’s over. Now you are writing for real.

Use your jottings and the memories generated to describe a weekday winter breakfast. Don’t limit yourself to what you ate. Is there condensation on the inside of the window and icicles outside? What can you see when you look out? Who is in a rush and who is already late?

You can’t cop out and say that you didn’t have breakfast back then. Of course you did – it might have been a doughnut at lunchtime, but if that was the first meal of the day write about it and about why you left home with only the taste of toothpaste in your mouth. Go off on a tangent if one occurs to you and see where it leads.

If you have no desire to write about an everyday breakfast and can’t see how it connects with your writing project, I ask for your patience and urge you to do it anyway. Thinking about the exercise is not the same as doing it. To work it needs pen on paper or fingers on keyboard, digging up those sights and smells in short bursts. Remember, if you can capture the routine of an ordinary day you will have gone a long way towards stepping back in time.

And food is very revealing.

A simple meal can define emotional relationships and economic status, disclose ethnicity and establish context. It can give the reader a sense of the time without having to give month and year, surprise with the unusual or offer a gentle hug of recognition

I hope that worked for you. I didn’t use that particular exercise in BACK TO CREATIVE WRITING SCHOOL so you can think of it as a Memoir Writer’s exclusive.

I did, however, start the book with one that is ideal for anyone engaged in autobiographical writing. It is about the names you’ve been called over the years, the nice names, the ones that you were happy to answer to, where they came from and who was allowed to use them. The exercise also introduces the merits of one of the most useful words in a memoir writer’s vocabulary: the word perhaps.

Amazon allows you to see the first couple of exercises so you can pop over and try without having to buy, although of course I hope you’re so impressed that you won’t be able to stop yourself from doing just that.

I believe passionately that the creative techniques we often associate with fiction and stories from the imagination can be used equally well in memoir and autobiography.

 All good writing is creative.

 

Author’s Biography

Bridget is a London Irish writer living in southern England. She studied creative and life writing at Goldsmiths College – the leading creative university of the UK – as part of the MA creative writing programme. Two years later she was back lecturing in biography and autobiography. She is now teaches at many locations, including City Lit, the largest adult education centre in Europe. She has also been Writer in Residence at an inspiring community centre serving the unemployed and low waged

 

 

BACK TO CREATIVE WRITING SCHOOL is an ebook collection of 30 practical writing exercises covering such subjects as dialogue, description and magic for grown-ups, but it is more than just a set of prompts and how-to instructions. Novelist Lizzie Enfield observed: “..it’s a book which anyone could read and if they did they would probably find their pleasure in words and the world  heightened.”

 

Back to Creative Writing School

Amazon US http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GJN576E $2.99
Amazon Can https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00GJN576E $3.12
Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GJN576E £1.70

 

You can visit Bridget’s popular blog for writers and readers at http://bridgetwhelan.com/

Follow her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/creativewritingschool and Twitter@agoodconfession.

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Thank you , Bridget for sharing your thoughts on creativity and for taking is all “back to creative writing school”.  You have given us a glimpse of what your new book has to offer all writers.

How about you? How do you tap into your own creativity?

Bridget has graciously offered to give away a copy of her ebook, Back to Creative Writing School, to a commentator whose name will be selected in a random drawing.

We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~

Next Week: ” When Historical Events Trigger Memories: A Memoir Moment”

 

 

Reading Habits of a Writer, Writing

What Do Writers Read? A Guest Post by Memoir Author Belinda Nicoll

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A guest post by Belinda Nicoll/@BelindaNicoll

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” Benjamin Franklin

I am very pleased to feature Freelance Writer, Memoir Author and Creativity Coach Belinda Nicoll in this guest post. Belinda and I met in Sonia Marsh‘s Gutsy Indie Publisher Facebook group. She blogs about creative writing, the changing world of books and publishing and offers a series of rite-of-passages stories by guest writers. Her current series, What is the Gist of Your Story, features guest bloggers who discuss how the premise and themes of their books can be the basis of effective book publicity.

Her favorite topics are personal transformation and global change. Here are my reviews of her memoir, Out of Sync on Amazon and Goodreads. She is currently working on a novel.

We are told that in order to be a good writer, we need to be a good reader. Belinda shares her thoughts on how her writing process has influenced her reading habits and then how her habits have changed.

Welcome Belinda!

 

Author and Creativity Coach Belinda Nicoll
Author and Creativity Coach Belinda Nicoll

As a cognitive process, reading is a means of acquiring knowledge; it’s a complex interaction between the nature of the content—informative, educational, persuasive, entertaining—and the objectives of the reader. When you read, you bring your attitudes, skills, values and beliefs to the experience; if you approach a text with an open mind, it’s likely you’ll feel changed in some way when you get to the end of the book; but if you’re set in your ways, certain content might make you feel uncomfortable or even bring about a dislike of the author.

 

After I started writing my memoir, Out of Sync, I was unable to read for pleasure. I had work to do—stepping into my student shoes, I plowed through creative writing guides, absorbing the do’s and don’ts of memoir-writing. I read other memoirs to emulate the style of writers I admire: Alexandra Fuller, Jeanette Walls, Frank McCourt, Joan Connor, and many more. I read news reports about the economic growth in post-apartheid South Africa to make sure I get my facts right in describing how the changes there caught my husband and I off-guard after our expatriation to the U.S. in 2001. I read world news to stay abreast of globalization, one of the themes of my memoir and a concept a lot of Americans were still in denial about. I read forecasts about the world economy; we could relate to predictions of rising inflation in the U.S., because we’d been through it in South Africa and were recognizing the signs. I cried every time I read a story about people who’d lost loved ones in the 9/11 disaster—it wasn’t easy writing the chapter of my memoir that deals with our arrival at JFK International Airport on that fateful day. I read and made notes; I read and jotted down references; I read and edited my memoir, again, and again.

 

Until recently, long after the completion of my memoir, I’ve been the worst novel reader imaginable—I could not read even a chapter without dissecting the text and noting (for instance):

  • if the protagonist, antagonist, and others are represented as flat or multi-dimensional characters;
  • if point of view is that of the narrator’s or if the story is told from first-, second-, or omniscient perspective;
  • how setting is used in providing a historical or cultural context for the characters;
  • if dialogue is stilted or natural, or if it’s (mis)used as information dump;
  • if the plot abides by the prescribed structure of the book’s genre;
  • if the author is making use of special literary devices such as back-story, cliffhangers, flashbacks, or letter and emails (parts of my memoir are told in epistolary style as I inserted certain email exchanges between me and my family).

 

I had turned into such a critical reader that my husband complained, saying “Please do not tell me what you think of that book or its author until I’ve read it.” When I started selling my published memoir, my reading shifted to the how-to topics of book publicity. Slowly, I started reading novels for relaxation again; and now, when I read the memoirs of my peers with the intention of posting a review for them, I manage to ‘go with the flow’ and concentrate on how the story makes me feel rather than attempt to critique it. I’ve even joined a book club again, and even though the other members seem a little dazzled by having an author in their midst, I’m trying to act like a reader and not a writer.

 

Having said that, I’m currently working on my first novel, so I’ve got books strewn all over the house in preparation for research: Cults In Our Midst by M.T. Singer, Monster by A. Hall, The Great Anglo-Boer War by Farwell…of course, I’m doing my best to ignore my husband, who’s shaking his head, mumbling, “There we go again…”

 

Bio

Belinda is a freelance writer, indie author, and creativity coach. She blogs about issues related to writing and creativity, as well as her favorite subject: change. Her memoir, Out of Sync, is available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, and Kalahari (South Africa). You can follow Belinda at Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

"Out of Sync" Book Cover
“Out of Sync” Book Cover

 

Thank you , Belinda for showing us how the writing process has influenced your reading habits. I know that once I started writing, I started reading books differently, with an eye out for what works and what doesn’t. You bring up a good point though about getting back to reading for the pure enjoyment of being immersed in a story.

 

How about you? Have your reading habits changed since you started writing?

 

We’d love to hear from you. Belinda will be giving away a free copy of her memoir, Out of Sync, to a random commenter so please leave your comments below~

 

 

Next Week: “Lessons I’ve Learned About Revising My Memoir-In-Progress” on March 4 followed by “Re-visioning Memoir: An Interview with Linda Joy Myers” on March 7.

Creativity, Music, Writing

Music Matters in Memoir Writing~A Reflection

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Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler

“Music is moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, and life to everything…Without music, life would be an error. “Plato, attributed

 

"Listening to Music" Galina Barskaya/dreamstimefree
“Listening to Music” Galina Barskaya/dreamstimefree

 

I have always been amazed at the ability of music to affect my mood, transport me to another time and place and help me connect to my own creative energy.

When I write about the past, I often tune into Pandora radio for whatever decade I may be writing about.

Okay, I’ll admit, I do often sing around the house, too. I usually wake up with a song on my mind and end up giving voice to it until it eventually dissipates as I go about my day. Here’s the deal- I can’t really sing but that doesn’t matter. I  do enjoy belting out the tunes to my audience of Rosie and Max, our Golden Retrievers and to Wayne, my husband who usually just smiles and shakes his head.

Music helps me to connect…

 

Music is a universal language:

The Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli can sing to me anytime and I’ll understand his language of love. Here he is performing The Prayer with Celine Dion at the 1999 Grammys:

 

 

 

 

 

Music is therapeutic:

Think about the soothing background music played in the dentist’s or doctor’s office to calm you, or the use of music in hospice settings to ease pain and anxiety. Music therapy, also called” expressive therapy” is a part of any helping professions’ role in healing according to Wikipedia.

Power of Music by Louis Gallait. A brother and sister resting before an old tomb. The brother is attempting to comfort his sibling by playing the violin, and she has fallen into a deep sleep, "oblivious of all grief, mental and physical." Wikipedia/Music Therapy
Power of Music by Louis Gallait. A brother and sister resting before an old tomb. The brother is attempting to comfort his sibling by playing the violin, and she has fallen into a deep sleep, “oblivious of all grief, mental and physical.” Wikipedia/Music Therapy

 

 

 

Music is transformative:

It often transports the singer or musician to an altered state. Have you ever seen American cellist and virtuoso, Yo-Yo Ma in concert and seen the ecstasy on his face when he plays the cello?

 

 

 

 

Music reflects and defines the times:

Social movements are galvanized in the music of the times. Here’s Peter, Paul and Mary at a concert in Japan in 1990 singing Where Have All the Flowers Gone? It speaks to the pain and loss of the young men of my generation, the 1960’s, in the Vietnam War, and fueled the anti-war movement:

 

 

 

 

It is clear to me that music has extraordinary benefits to enhance productivity in life and in writing.

 

When I was thirteen, my parents encouraged me to take piano lessons. Begrudgingly, I’d sit at the upright used piano, pounding the keys, wishing I was doing anything other than that. Eventually, they let me quit, realizing I had no interest. As time went by, I began regretting that decision. For years, I longed to be able to play and dreamed of getting back to it someday.

 

After a trip to Missouri in 2006, when my friend, Mary Sue, sat at her Baby Grand piano in her Victorian sitting room with an upright piano and an organ, and mesmerized me with her piano music, I made a decision.

 

I would play the piano again.

 

As soon as I returned home, I went shopping for a used piano and bought an upright Kimball the same day. Soon after, I signed up for piano lessons which I took regularly from a lovely teacher, Sarah,for six years.

 

Now, let me be clear. I do not aspire to be a concert pianist nor do I expect to be able to play by ear as Mary Sue does. But I can read music and I can play for myself so that I recognize the tune. If I’m on a roll, others who happen to be in the vicinity recognize it too.

 

I play the piano for the sheer enjoyment of letting my fingers dance across the keys in a way that transports me and gets me in rhythm with myself and my creative energies.

 

When my friend, Marilyn, was dying of ovarian cancer in Wisconsin in 2009, I’d sit at the piano and play, visualizing myself connecting with her spirit. I couldn’t be there with her in person but I could play music in her honor. It was my gift for her and to myself.

 

On my parent’s 65th wedding anniversary in 2008 when I couldn’t be with them, I played Let Me Call You Sweetheart over the phone.
I stopped playing about a year ago listing a litany of excuses…focus on writing, play with the grand kids, do the laundry. I figured I’d lost my music…

 

So I sat down the other day and began playing some familiar tunes-Beauty and the Beast, Ava Marie, When Irish Eyes Are Smiling and guess what?

 

I got my music back.

My piano
My piano

 

I need to practice but as I finish the first revision of my memoir, it’s the least I can do to connect with my own rhythms so that what flows onto the keyboard will spill over onto the pages helping me to  connect, heal, transform and define the times and my story through my writing.

 

 

For me, music does matter in memoir writing.

 

 

 

How about you? Do you have ways to tap into your own creative energies? How do you get in rhythm?

 

 

I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~

 

 

 

This week:  I’m also over at Cate Russell-Cole’s blog, CommuniCATE with a guest post; “Confessions of a Memoir Writer”

 

 

Next Week: Memoir Author Pam Richards will discuss “Dare We Write About Miracles in Memoir?” Pam will be giving away a copy of her memoir, Singing From Silence to a commenter who will be selected in a random drawing.